


Wingbeats

by GraceEliz



Series: Shelter of his Wings [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Chapter Five: baby Jedi, Chapter Four: teenage jedi idiots get grounded, Chapter Seven: cuddle puddle, Chapter Six: Coruscant Guard post-Lawless, Chapter Three: CloneTrophy Husbands, Chapter Two: Dancing Vader, Eyrie-verse, F/M, Force Dyads, Gen, Or otherwise known as "Jango Fett get out of my fic", Wingfic, angst made out of a crack prompt, prompted works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25129177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: Prompts fitting into my wingfic 'verse
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Riyo Chuchi, CC-1010 | Fox/Original Female Character, Quinlan Vos & Obi-Wan Kenobi & Bant Eerin
Series: Shelter of his Wings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808101
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	1. Clones: A trap is sprung.

“Okay, ready?”

“I really don’t think you should do this.”

Fret rolled his eyes. “I thought I was meant to be the anxious one? It’ll be fine.”

“No,” insisted Click, “I really don’t think this is a good, or kind, idea. You’re gonna upset him!” 

“Please,” scoffed Edit, “Fox doesn’t get upset.” 

None of the other vode seemed to think it was a bad idea because Fox would be upset. They were, in fact, all in favour of making their over-stressed and under-paid Commander have an outburst, despite repeated warnings from Stitch that no, this was not what he advised, and no, they should not come crying to him when Fox broke their jaws in retaliation for their crimes. Fox would most definitely want to break jaws. If any of them thought it was a bad idea it was because Senator Riyo Chuchi and Knight Flit Kenobi would have their hides. 

“Alright, he’s coming.”

One last effort from Click, “I’m telling you not to do this! On the record!”

His brothers waved him off, ready with the projected images of Fox and Riyo animatedly discussing the dresses in shop windows on one side of the wall and Fox out on one of his nicer dates with Knight Kenobi on the other wall, both cut and cleaned up by Edit (who definitely earned his name) from CCTV feeds. Illegally. They’d photoshopped various... _salacious_ remarks over the images as if they were some of Fox’ scribbled suspect boards in his office which the Head Architect promised definitely wasn’t a larger-than-expected storage cupboard in a back corridor painted up as an office in black chalkboard paint and white ceilings to reflect light.

Oh yeah, Fox was going to be totally pissed off. 

“What the fuck?”

“Surprise!”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Slipstitch grinned from behind Fret as if being out of Fox’s direct line of sight would be anything closer to safety. “We sent these to the womenfolk too!”

A single moment passed of shivering, infuriated silence, before both Click and Fox started yelling loud enough for their brothers in the cantina to hear them.  
“Riyo is my best friend!”

“How dare you send such a thing to Knight Kenobi!”

“I should knock all your teeth out for this.”

“Do you think she’ll be impressed, huh?”

“Flit deserves better than your mockery,” snarled Fox, his fists clenched as he shook in his anger. Every muscle seemed to quiver, the tension in his jaw enough to give Click a headache just by looking at it. Being vindicated in his misgivings didn’t feel very nice when it came with his ori’vod’s pain. With one last vicious glare at all the assembled, he caught Click by the wrist and hauled him out into the corridor. Fox looked more furious than he could remember him being whilst in base, staring Thorn down wordlessly when their vod tried to stop Fox’s rapid march. The second-in-command stepped easily out of their way.

“Fox?”

“Shut up,” he gritted. Click very carefully didn’t see the sheen of his brother’s dark eyes or angered-upset low growl, even when his ori’vod snapped out his orders to get his speeder brought up and made his teeth buzz.  
Sometimes they forgot Fox and Wolffe were named after predators for a reason, but then some di’kut played a cruel prank, and snarls echoed through the base of their skulls.

“Fox?” he repeated, unnerved by the bloddy-minded determination. Everyone knows an angry Fox is a brutal Fox, and a terrifying (safe but terrifying) driver.

The key snicked in the ignition. “I’m not mad at you, Click. It’s okay,” he rumbled.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“You’re to go see Riyo and talk about your emotions,” instructed the Commander, craning his neck to get the best view of the very rapidly approaching intersection. “I’m going to see if I can catch Flit before I have to get on shift.” The bucket distorted his voice, making Click uncomfortable. 

For another minute the wind tore past them, whistling over Fox’s bucket into Click’s unprotected ears. He tucked his forehead against the cold beskar protecting his vod’s back. Who had his back? Who of them other than Thorn and Thire really knew what it was like to have Commander Fox’s back?

“Ori’vod? I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he sighed. No, thought Click near-mutinously, it was not alright. None of this was alright at all, when it made their controlled leader cry.


	2. Dancing Vader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crack Prompt: Dancing Vader  
> Me: I can make this sad, watch me.

The Senate halls are being renovated. He hates it. The reds and burgundies remind him of the spilled blood. At least the barracks are much as they were. Some of his kits (don’t call them kits, they are not children, they are not yours, you are property and you don’t deserve children) had spent days repainting them in soothing creamy shades, scraping away all the blue and red. There are so few of them left now, vode lost to the onslaught of the Chancellor-turned-Emperor, but there’s nothing he can do. Nothing. 

From one of the unfinished ballrooms he detects soft scraping sounds – if that’s one of his men they’re going straight to bed or medical. No trooper should scrape their feet so. Drawing in line with the doors still hanging off their hinges, the carpenters haven’t made it this far yet, meaning they’re behind schedule, he braces himself.

Commander CC-1010 is the leader of the Coruscant Guard. Professionalism is his definition.

“Trooper, I must insist,” he begins. Then stops. It isn’t a trooper. It’s a being, in black, with a fluttering cape, and if he didn’t know better he would have thought it one of the Jedi. But that is impossible. “Sir,” he does not ask.

The mask looks at him. “Fox.”

Oh dear. “Sir?”

“I was...dancing,” wheezes the creature, voice twisted by more than just the machine. Whatever the metal is – beskar, probably – won’t allow for slumping or less than a perfect posture. If this is indeed who Fox is desperately hoping it isn’t, then there’s a full set of prosthetics too. “For...physical therapy.”

Fox nods. “I see, Sir. My apologies for the interruption.” Would it be worse to slink away or wait for dismissal? If this were a Senator he would know, would have files and his measure already taken, but it isn’t. This is a Jedi, Fallen into the Dark, or dragged there, a kin-killer.

Vod’kyramund.

He wishes that wasn’t a point of similarity, crushes the thought into nothingness before his chest can seize at the grief and guilt of the last months.

“Commander, I would have...you stay a while to watch...my body is still recovering,” wheezes the man. Skywalker, only not. It’s not like he can refuse. What name should he use? He is no Jedi, not anymore, not when any Jedi is now Traitor and must be killed on sight. 

“Of course, Sir,” he answers as serenely peaceful as ever. The years have made him very good at Jedi-levels of serene peace. Stitch called it disassociation. The black-beskar man turns his focus away from Fox, but he doesn’t relax. His guard must not fall, or his pain will strike out in the Force and this creature will know it all. He takes a step, that droning wheeze filling the broken room, boot clanking down. Another step. A third, but he buckles slightly, catching himself on nothing, the wheeze stuttering. “Sir, is there anything I can do to help?”

The beskar-man tilts his head. “I fear not...Commander,” he says, quieter than before. He drags his right leg further under him, then pushes the left forwards. A step, drag the other leg diaganolly, then bring the first leg in, almost managing to trace a triangle. He repeats the motion, tensely determined. A waltz-step, the most basic, the first dance any of them ever learn. Fox can waltz in his sleep. Teaching his Shinies to dance is one of the only good things about his entire job in this miserable pit of self-serving snakes.

It’s sad, watching this broken man (oh Force his _wings_ ) try to waltz without falling, bracing himself off the Force when his balance shifts to accommodate limbs that simply aren’t there anymore. What happened? What awful being could do this?

Fox knows. He knows and wishes with all his heart he didn’t, but he knows, and he uses what he knows to protect his brothers. That is his purpose now. Stay alive, keep his brothers alive, until whatever thing is trying to control their brains stops and they can run. If staying alive and running means he takes this broken remnant of a great man with him, well, that is what it takes.

Anakin Skywalker’s stilted waltz in a broken ballroom as their home stains the sky with smoke behind him is the saddest dance Fox has ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I've mangled the Mando'a I apologise profusely


	3. Fox & Riyo: Trophy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short glimpse at how it feels to be a Clone, and how it feels when the Jedi allow him to watch them be a family, teasing Bly and General Kenobi both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some thoughts about how Bly would find being the "trophy husband" funny, but that Fox is far too used to being considered a trophy in a bad way to be comfortable with it. To be clear, at the end of short, he still isn't, but he's chilled out a bit.

The other vode often refer to Bly as General Secura’s trophy husband. It’s affectionate, and humourous, and it stops General Vos breathing down Bly’s neck quite so badly. Force, he is so sick of that Kiffar. Between he and General Kenobi and their friends, one of whom was a healer, and Knight Kenobi often joined them, he had more forms to fill in when they had leave together than the last time a Senator got assassinated. Which was ten months ago, thank you very much, he actually does his job.

But still. Hearing Bly called a trophy makes him flinch. They know it does – some of the other vode do the same, but not quite for his reasons.

“Fox?”

“I’m fine,” he says on reflex. Riyo hums, settling into his side with her ear pressed to his chest where his heartbeat is loud. He feels a sudden burst of fondness tear through him. She is his best friend, his second-closest confidant, and he adores her easily as much as he does his brothers. 

“Really?”

He lets himself slump slightly. “No. No, I’m not. I know she means it fondly – it’s a joke, just a joke. She deals with the objectification just as much as we do. And the other Generals too, with their wings. I just,” he trails off, not quite knowing how to explain the panic ringing in his upper chest when one of his brothers-or-sons is objectified. This isn’t the Senate. These are the Jedi, their friends and family. He can see Generals Secura and Skywalker scheming something, and Commander Tano is playing tackle-tag with General Vos and Kote – no, Cody, here they call him Cody – and Rex and some Temple Younglings. It’s sweet. Click looks over at Riyo with an adorably infatuated smile. 

But still.

He can’t relax. Even here in a Temple garden, he can’t relax, because this is a public place and these are very, very famous people and he knows exactly why the winged Jedi have their nights out in the posher upper levels, and he knows roughly their market value, and he knows. Knows. Knows too much to ever sleep peacefully again. Maybe he should have swapped out his leave day to spend it in the Senate Hall; two of General Kenobi’s family from Stewjon are visiting, along with a rather large contingent, and he’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that most of the system’s leaders are on Coruscant together. He can’t relax.

“I cannot conceive that he doesn’t want us to vote,” says General Vos in a confused (and confusing) burst. Around them, the other Jedi look at him curiously, but dismiss is as One Of Their Things when General Kenobi, Knight Kenobi, and the two Clan Gregor representatives come striding in. Clan Leader, or maybe Chief? No, Clan Leader Nic Gregor is ranting in their language, Gaelic he thinks, waving her arms about. Her impressive wings are flaring and jerking.

They four throw themselves onto the grass, fitting into the little circle nicely. Commander Tano runs over, eager for news. “Well?”

“The Mand’alor told us not to vote! It’s a Clone Rights Bill, of course the whole system is going to vote in favour, we’re not slavers,” she spits furiously. The man spits too, as does Knight Kenobi, what is his title? Seer? Clansman? He doesn’t want to ask and insult them when they’ve been so supportive of the vod’e.

“Why would he do that?” asks Riyo, sitting up. Click settles beside her. They’re not exactly publicly affectionate, not like he and Riyo, but he understands.  
Flit sighs. “Politics.”

“Politics,” agrees General Kenobi, “I suppose it could be – ”

“Conflict of Interest!” General Secura yells from where she is still scheming with her – cousin? Are they cousins? He guesses that must be how having cousins feels. Her comment makes the Jedi in their group snort.

“Alright, well, that’s doesn’t count because it was the Mand’alor who said it, not the Jorad’alor.”

“You’re literally one of, like, three Jedi he’s willing to talk to, and the other of those is me,” says Flit dryly. The Kenobi wit is apparently genetic. “I’m still not sure I entirely understand.”

“I think,” says Mac Gregor, “Jango Fett is asking us this as a friend, and not as the Mand’alor. He called in the life-debt over it.”

“Who has a life debt with Fett?” demands Click. Clan Leader Gregor and General Kenobi raise their hands, as does Flit, grimacing. “Not you too, Flit.”

She sighs. “It was kind of an accident.”

“You blew up a Kyr’stad base when you were fifteen.”

“Shut up, Ander, you led the rout. Also! Blanket permission to all you vode I haven’t personally met to call me Fionna.” Rout? He looks at Riyo, who shrugs, but there’s a light to her eyes that tells him she suspects something.

“This life debt wouldn’t he related to the time when you were my age that you, Eion and Fionna led a very much not Jedi mission to, the term used on the holo net was ‘obliterate’, the Death Watch, would it?”

Fox is not the only brother who yells something along the lines of _“that was you???”_ in the following minute. Fionna and General Kenobi look smug. He’s actually not that surprised by it, of fekking course it was them, but it certainly sheds light on some very strange conversations he’s overheard. After all, he’s a statue, a trophy, decorative if useful, and Senators seem to forget he is alive. Except for Riyo and Duchess Satine, of course. 

“Maybe. He got us off the hook, but we, as Pecht, can’t owe him a Mandalorian life-debt, so he decided it would be one favour. No-questions, immediate action, type. I honestly did not think he’d do this to us,” explains Fionna, “I would vote in favour of you guys’ rights any day.”

Click pats her hand in gratitude; Bly toasts her with a his cup of juice.

Vos speaks up. “He needs a neutral system in case the Clones need sanctuary.”

“Yep,” agrees General Kenobi.

Vos hums, thinking. “Right. Guess I’ll go do some snooping then,” he says, standing. “Be back by midnight. Maybe.”

“Bye Quin,” pipes General Secura with a broad smile. Her dad (he’s isolated not stupid, he knows about Vos and his daughter) pats her head as he passes out of the garden. “Is Satine mad?”

All four of the Gregor Clan members flinch dramatically where they’re sat. Huh. Duchess Satine is always lovely to the Clones. But, he notices, General Kenobi is starting to blush. Oh, he smirks at Flit, who winks back, so those rumours are true then.

“At least if she is it’s his problem,” quips Fionna.

“See if I help you next time you call me to arms.”

She barks a laugh. “You’re the trophy husband, dear brother, we both know it.”

General Kenobi rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to say it, sister.”

“You’re younger than me, I do what I want. And I’m in charge anyway.”

Huh, he’d never really thought about it, but he knew the Jedi have family in each other – why is he so surprised that they tease each other over the same things the vode do?

“It’s all right, Obi-Wan,” says Bly with a grin, his gold tattoos crinkling, “come sit with me and we’ll be trophy husbands together.”

He surprises everyone, but most of all himself, when barks a laugh when Fionna and Flit round on General Kenobi, yelling about not having been involved, loudly ribbing him for letting their niece 'marry' without them. Ree grips his hand, telling him with the press of her palm that he is allowed to laugh – he is allowed to laugh at the who Jedi tease each other over who is the trophy husband, who are loudly affectionate and whose children play Force-assisted tackle-tag.

Look at that. He’s relaxed.


	4. "I hate you" and "I hate to tell you this"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I hate you"  
> "I know"   
> And   
> "I hate to tell you this but"   
> Or,   
> Jumping of ledges may be what young men do a lot of, but now they're in trouble. They're eighteen. That's too old to be in the Healers with self inflicted concussions.

They seem to end up in the Healing Halls every couple of weeks now. Oh, it’s their own fault, Quin knows, for throwing themselves (and, yes, each other) off ledges and such in the Temple all the time, but they’re growing Jedi. With wings. Jumping off things is, like, instinctive. That said, he has a mild aneurysm every time Aayla does it too. Thank Force she’s so good at catching herself and never tries it without an adult.

“Alright, you can lie down now,” Bant tells him sternly. He flashes his most dashing grin, but she smacks his wrist with a datapad the same yellow as his stripe. “Lie down. Go to sleep. And if Obi-Wan wakes up before I get back, keep him calm.”

“Okay, Bant.”

Her eyes are still hard. “Quinlan.”

“Alright,” he sighs, lying down. “Sorry, Bant.”

The Mon Cala sits heavily in the visitor’s chair. “I know, Quin. But you two need healthier hobbies.”

“We can’t exactly go on the town with the others.”

“And I’d far rather you get drunk inside than go out and get kidnapped,” his friend, his sister, agrees, “I am still telling you two to get better hobbies. These stunts are dangerous.”

Chastised, he sighs. “I know.”

Slowly, his friend draws to her feet. “I’ll set Aayla to bed. It’s too late for her to come visit.”

He winces at the reminder of his little Padawan and the responsibility he bears to the Eyrie as a whole. How can you protect us when you don’t protect yourself, Quinlan, he remembers Siri demanding of him. They kept him straight, his alphas.

_What a pair we make, my friend.  
_

Obi-Wan, being unconscious, did not respond. His mental presence oozed and thickened with his concussion, and yeah. He is. Guilty about this.  
I’m sorry.

“Bleugh, all I can taste is anaesthesia, I feel like crap,” Obi wheezes. “Quin. You little bitch. I hate you.”

He rolled over, which with wings is far harder than most people would consider. “I know. Jedi don’t hate.”

_Bitch._

_Love you too.  
_

“We’re in trouble?”

“Oh yep,” pops Quinlan, lying on his back, because ow, that hurts. Wow. He hadn’t realised he has muscles there to pull. “Bant is furious and our Masters have been and gone.”

_Eugh._

_Mhm._

_Aayla?_

_Furious, we’re grounded._

_Why is she the boss?_

_My boss, and I’m your boss._

_I’m the Alpha._

_I’m the boss.  
_

“I’m never doing this again,” swears Obi sourly, dragging himself upright and reeling his mind back towards himself.

“I hate to tell you this. You’re a fun sucker.”

Really, it’s remarkable how Obi manages to do that Look. He’s definitely going to be on the Council.

“I almost died.”

“Pft, you’re fine,” he dismisses. _Sorry._

_Me too._

_Friends?_

_Can’t leave you on your own.  
_

He smiles, truly, his sharp teeth on full shining display, but it’s okay. They’re Alpha and Omega. Baring their teeth at each other is how they roll. Obi breaks their moment to scrub his hand in his hair, grimacing at the sweaty grime, but quirking at grin when he forwards how spiky it is down the bond. It’s really strange, looking at themselves through each other’s minds. They’d tried to do it with Siri – brave, wonderful, loud Siri – and she’d thrown up. Some people just can’t hack how cool he is. 

_You’re not cool, Quin._

_Excuse you, I’m amazing.  
_

There’s a tap on the door, then Bant re-enters. “You’re not dead then.”

“Sorry, Bant,” they chorus. She’s great, she really is, but alpha Healers just hover. All the time. Always. It’s awful. Touching, but awful.

“Well, the good news is that you’re both going to be fine. Bad news is Quin, you’re gonna have some nasty muscle pains, which serve you right. And Aayla’s mad. Obi, bad news, but Satine is on planet, and so is your sister.”

_FECKIN HELLS_

_It can’t be that bad._

_Fiona is furious with Satine, Quin. She might actually cause a war. We’re a neutral system. And if she does cause a war it’ll be over me which just, no._

_Satine didn’t actually break your heart though._

_She kinda did. Like. She did. It wasn’t her fault, she’s a Duchess and I’m a Jedi. But. She definitely did.  
_

“Get out of each others’ heads, you two. Obi-Wan still has a concussion and I’ve told you before that you can’t be doing that when concussed,” Bant snaps her fingers to pull their attention in.” You can go. If you escape Master Che.”

_So, your sister has it out for your girlfriend?_

_We. Maybe. May have got engaged. And uh. My sister._

_That wasn’t a joke?_

_.... No?  
_

He can only stare. He probably looks like an idiot, loose dreads and ruffled wings, sat with his mouth opening and closing like the carp in Master Nu’s pond. _You are going to pay for me to get drunk as soon as we’re ungrounded,_ he finally says, because damn. This is a big piece of information to digest. 

_That’s absolutely fair._

_It’s no wonder Fionna wants her dead._

_She doesn’t want her dead, Quinlan.  
_

They both jump, their surprise a feedback loop between them, when Bant slams her hand down. “Heads. Out. Get,” she orders, so they go, very apologetically. 

They don’t get past Che. They go get the promised bollocking. 

_But like, you actually plan to marry her?_

_Quinlan, can we do this later?  
_

Nope. 

_The ruse of being engaged maybe got too comfortable.  
What did Master Jinn say?   
_

Obi doesn’t deign answer that one, which is fair. Healer Che is very scary, but she secretly likes them. Well. She likes Obi. They’ll be fine. 

_There’s Siri and Aayla.  
_

Or not.


	5. Kids, right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Se loves her job, truly she does, but sometimes she just wants one day where nobody starts a fight.  
> Or: look! Baby Jedi!

The Temple is their home, and they are as close as any clan-mates ever get despite none of them being the same Clan except the two worst. Between the youngest and the oldest is only four years, but already they have two definite leaders – which is not to say that the younglings get dragged around or bullied, oh no. They get protective.

It does not make them any easier to raise. No, no. It makes them worse. 

“Master Se, I think Bruck is bullying Obi-Wan again,” calls one of her little charges, a feathered little Avi’ian who adored his friends – humans with wings, he’d gasped in awe when he first saw them. Se’sannima sighs, supressing a sigh when little Kor’kes sighs too, setting his little feathered hands on his hips, wings arcing around him. There’s nothing for it, she supposes, except to go out there and try, once again, to work out what’s going on. 

Child bonds. She’s always been a supporter, she’ll defend their right to bond with their friends until her last breath, but it makes the troublesome ones so much more interesting. When she’s tired, they’re less interesting, and more a pain in the lekku. 

“Without your friends to help you you’d still be in the Youngling classes,” sneers Bruck. Oh boy. One of these days, then. The friend-group are stood in a protective gaggle behind the two winged boys. Quinlan’s eyes are hard and cold, but Obi-Wan’s eyes are hot and sad and a bit angry – he does have a bit of a temper. If he only felt everything less... 

She takes a breath. “What is going on here?”

The young ones snap to immediate attention. Bruck is still fuming, but it appears that the others are having a rapid conversion. What is it they’ve taken to calling themselves? Not Nest, but something similar. Eyrie. 

“It’s nothing, Master Se,” says Garen firmly. One of the oldest of their group, she remembers, not a leader but a sort of balancing presence for the others. How peculiar, to have such a flock-dynamic as children already. “We’re going to the Fountains,” he adds, pulling Siri away by the hand – yes, she’s a little mean, that girl. Good, kind, but hard. Obi-Wan and Reeft are gentle and soft enough to balance her out.

She narrows her eyes at them. “Are you so? What, pray tell, do you intend to do with yourselves there?”

“Meditate,” offers Bant, and once again Se marvels at the wonder that is children, because as far as she can tell they really do intend to meditate. Remarkable.

Bruck looks mere minutes away from a tantrum. “Very well. I expect you back here before next bell,” she warns. Six voices chorus in sweet symphony, and she grunts and waves them away. She is left in the empty hall with the angry Bruck Chun. “You and I had better have a talk, I think,” Se muses. They boy scowls, but he clings to her hand with near desperation. Childhood jealousy doesn’t skip the Jedi just because they are Jedi: childhoods must still be lived, along with all the rocky paths that entails. “Let’s go to the canteen for a hot sweet drink.”

Step one to childcare: make them want to talk to you. 

Step two: actually work out how to deal with what they say.


	6. In loving memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: the Guard mourn Satine  
> Me: oh yeah, it's all coming together...   
> Me, Yzma voice: Jango Fett? He's supposed to be DEAD!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is Plot to this but it isn't ready and you all KNEW you were getting into non-linear updates when you arrived  
> Also! Flit is getting her own side-fic because I'm attached to her now.

Riyo chokes on it, the grief, the horror of it all – stars, Satine, dear Satine. Her friend, her mentor. A staunch defender of peace. A Queen in all but name.   
She has to tell the Guard. This is something they need to hear from her. 

Oh, gods.

“Excuse me, my friends,” she gasps, turning away from them – if she watches them cry, she won’t make it. “Commander Fox!”

He enters immediately. “Senator?”

“Come.” He follows her, asking no questions, just as she knew he would. They run trough the halls, Fox always just half a step behind, covering her back, until she reaches the door hiding the staircase to the barracks, where she stops, gasping, the grief humming in her every bone. “Fox, my friend.”

“Riyo,” he answers, hand gentle but firm on her back. “What happened? Who should I kill?”

She almost laughs at his gentle teasing, losing her composure for a moment in a grieved sob, pressing her hand to her mouth and breathing, breathing, breathing; hard wood under her forehead. “Barracks.”

“Alright,” he says, sliding his hand around so he can usher her into the stairwell. His tender concern makes the hole in her heart worse. What she has to say – it will break them. 

The barracks are white, mostly, with blue and red and gold and green and yellow accents scattered around doors and skirting boards. Usually she is pleased to visit, on the rare occasions time is hers to spend and prying eyes are misdirected. Tonight... Tonight. 

“Are you all here?” 

“All of us off-duty,” her Click assures her quietly.   
Alright. She takes in a breath, clutches as hard to Click as she can. “Duchess Kryze, Satine, our friend, is dead.”

“No.”

“She was murdered.”

Fox is on his feet, shaking, but the rest of the vode are statues where they sit. She knows he feels strongly for her – his allegiance is to Clan Gregor, with Flit, and with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Satine Kryze together in some description his allegiance stretches to her. “Ree.”

Riyo finally lets the sobs come. “I know. I don’t – I don’t know. All they said was that she was killed, on Manda’yaim.”

Her friends are stunned, horrified quiet. She curls around her grief, cradling it, as if by her hands she can hold it and change it – as if she can bring her mentor back to them. Satine Kryze. Dead. There can be no comfort from this – no aid, no treatment, no Jedi-trick to soothe the jagged grief. Click is silent, his hand heavy on her back. Her blood rushes in her ears. 

“Fox?”

“I’m going to Flit.”

“I’ll fly you.”

“Thire,” he tries to protest, but she raises her eyes. Pleading. 

“Please Fox, I can’t – not you, do you understand?”

His whole body softens, losing a little of the desperate pain. “Promise, Ree. I’ll see if she wants to come here.”  
“Thank you,” she breathes, and he and Thire are gone, and she is here with Click who she loves but Satine – Satine is gone. Riyo buries her head in her knees and cries, and cries, and at some point strong arms cradle her and carry her and she is placed on a bed, and Click strokes her hair as the door closes, and she lets it go. Lets out the ball of denial, scraping her throat raw as she screams as hard as she can, curling into herself and her Click. 

Much later she is curled on Click’s lap in the kitchen, his writing callouses catching her hair as he twists it up into a knot to keep it out of the soup someone has sourced; a huge metal tureen of the stuff balanced on the sideboard where anyone hungry can get it. Nobody is, though. Hard to be hungry when the loss of the Jorad’alor hangs over their heads as tangibly as rainwater. 

“She used to tell me – don’t be vengeful before the funeral, and that, that I can’t be vengeful for her, because she wouldn’t want me to be. I – I miss her, so much,” chokes Riyo, twisting her fingers around her shirt. 

Thorn leans blank-faced on the fridge. “Satine Kryze was always kind to us.”

“Our allegiance, as Mando’ade, is to her and Fett,” Click says lowly, “I say we contact the OG and see what’s happening.”

A door slams – the barrack door, it must be, she realises. 

“Senator Chuchi?” 

“Mand’alor,” she cries, trying to scramble to her feet, but he waves her off.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he tells her tenderly, but there is a very dangerous undertone – a sensation of vengeance, or of betrayal, and indeed maybe it is, thinks Riyo as a hard look passes between Thorn and Jango Fett; Satine Kryze’s murder is a betrayal of the Mand’alor and all that the Mandalorian people hold as their creed. “Are you alright?” 

“No.”

Mand’alor Fett nods sharply. “Good, I’d be pissed and annoyed if you weren’t.”

Such an abrupt, unexpected, statement almost startles a laugh out of the young Senator, and the Mandalorian’s face softens at her. Gently he places his hand over hers, squeezing her fingers in comfort. How does he see her, she wonders as he moves to speak very quietly to Thorn in Mando’a; is she like a daughter in law? Does he even see her as that, or is she merely one of his Clones’ girls?

“Get some rest, ad’ika,” Fett tells her. Click picks her up, ignoring Thorn’s tease – in Mando’a, so she doesn’t understand it – as he carries her from the kitchen. In a burst of politeness, Riyo waves to the Mand’alor. He smiles. 

It doesn’t hurt, quite so bad, knowing she can’t see her mentor again. Still. Riyo and Click cry together, in his bed, until they fall asleep. 

Riyo awakes the next morning abruptly, all-at-once, as if by a noise; she hears nothing except the low hum of the men moving through the barracks. Where Click had lain in bed is cold, the blanket tucked neatly around her. Strange, she hadn’t expected to be able to sleep at all after the news, but stressful situations never run the same course twice. Under her bare feet the floor is cold enough to make her cringe, so she pulls on a pair of Click’s spare socks, hand-knitted and corded and red as the paint on his armour. It’s cold, so she decides to tug on his uniform jacket. She’ll have to be very, very careful not to mark it; maybe someone has a shawl or blanket or something she can wear over it. 

The door doesn’t squeak as she opens it, and she doesn’t know why she expected it to. In the kitchen is Fox, eyes empty, and Flit, pale and greyed-out. “Morning,” her best friend grunts. 

“Hey,” she says in response. “Are you okay?”

He nods, but Flit looks up from her mug with red-rimmed eyes. “She called for help, so my cousin went, and he’s - he,” but she can’t finish the sentence, curling over as her wings drop improbably lower. 

Oh. Master Kenobi too then. That – that is very bad.   
“Is the Mand’alor...”

Her friend scrubs his hand over his stubble. “On the Senate floor. He is very pissed.” Fox stands, topping off his mug from the dangerously strong pot of caf on the sink. “Apparently the ‘wilful ignorance of the politics and situation of Mandalore’ in the Senate is unacceptable, which it is, and he’s now accusing them of scheming against us and our sentient rights, which honestly? They probably are, and it’s just. Not pleasant up there.”

Riyo can, unfortunately, imagine. Mand’alor Fett doesn’t show up often, but he’s definintely a force of upheaval when he does. And now he’s angry. Maybe she should stay down here until he’s finished up there...

“I need to start shift, will you stay here?”

Flit shakes her head. “I need to go back to back to the Temple. I can’t... I can’t handle the Senators right now. I need to talk to the Eyrie, if any of them are home.” 

“I could stay with you,” she offers, gently placing her blue hand on Flit’s and wincing a little at how sick and grey her blue made her friend’s skin look. “I don’t think either of us want to be alone today.”

“No,” agrees the Jedi, her wings perking up just a little. “No, we should stay together.”

She smiles, and is very relieved that her friend smiles back. For sure, they’ll cry again very soon; how can they not, faced with this twin loss? But they’ll get through it; they have to. There is only what must be, there is the Force.


	7. Platonic Cuddle Puddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As requested: Platonic Cuddle Puddle ft bby Anakin and the use of "sweetheart" as an endearment

“Dad?”

Obi-Wan lifted his head off the cushion in the vague direction of the soft voice, pressing Siri’s head down a bit on his stomach so he could see over her to Anakin, standing just outside of his room with his wings all droopy with sleep. “What’s up,” he whispered, soothing Bant with a brush of love down the bond. It wouldn’t do to wake her up, not when she needed her sleep to go into ER at the local hospital in the morning.

“Nightmare,” breathed Anakin. The kid swayed, indecisive whether he should join them or go back to bed, but the need for comfort won out, and he padded over to the tangle of Jedi on the rug. He stood, hesitant, mere inches from Garen’s sprawled leg.

“C’mere sweetheart,” he grunted, lifting Siri off him so that she curled into Bant, “snuggles are good for nightmares.”

“Promise?” asked Anakin, a little weakly.

Obi-Wan flailed his hand up, catching his son – his son! – by the wrist and tugging him down to his chest. Their feathers brushed together, and he purred lowly, smiling into the soft sandy hair. “Cross my heart.”

Anakin’s elbow was in his wing, and his knee against one of the old scars on his thigh that ached dully after his over-energetic spar with Quinlan this morning, and Siri had shuffled around so her head was pressed against his other thigh, and he would undoubtedly take a sharp joint to old-injury-weakened muscle sometime before they all pried themselves off the carpet to do their duties, but he wouldn’t ever accept a change of place.

 _Come home safe, Quin,_ he whispered down the dyad-bond.

 _Don’t I always?_ came the cocky response.

He smiled into Anakin’s hair again, stroking his boy’s arm. Sure you do. Quinlan hovered in the bond, waiting until Obi-Wan dozed off with his son asleep on his chest, warm and safe and surrounded by their flock.


	8. First Night: discord request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A demand for fluff and snuggles and Anakin's reaction to being in the Temple.

Anakin was overexcited, and completely, utterly exhausted. His slave chip had been deactivated (yay me, Obi-Wan snarls) but not yet removed and he’d been given a hypo of shots by the Healers – namely Bant – and a booster for his nutrition. He sat in Obi-Wan’s bed with his eyes reddish and wide and his short hair everywhere and his wings a little uncomfortably tucked behind him. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Please,” begged Obi-Wan, “at least try. I’m going to have a boringly adult group meditation, and then if I’m not asleep on the floor I need to try and find my thesis, which is definitely in here somewhere. And you,” he insisted, tapping Anakin’s little nose, “need to sleep, sweetheart.”

The boy frowned. “You won’t leave?”

“I’ll even leave the door open a crack.”

He nodded slowly, wary of loss. “And you promise?”

“I promise.”

There was a hesitation on Anakin’s face Obi-Wan hadn’t really seen before in their admittedly short time together, far deeper than the bewilderment of earlier. For a frightening moment it looked like he’d cry. “Nobody will take you away for keeping me?”

Ah, he should have expected this. Apologising down the group-bond that he was delaying meditation, he sat on the bed, holding his new son close. “Nobody here is a slave, and nobody here is a slave-master, alright? Here, we don’t use Master to mean possession. It means that the person called Master is in control of their actions and emotions and mind, yes? A bit like – mm. A bit like my wings. They do as I tell them to, and I control what they show of my emotions. I am master of them. But nobody, nobody is a master of a being.”

Blue eyes, eyes like Tattooine skies, burn with inner fire. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” he swore, fierce. And then, as it rang true in the Force, “Nobody will ever put chains around me.”


	9. lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now remember,” lectures Obi-Wan, his hands smoothing out the folds of Anakin’s robes, “You are a weapon made mortal. You are the sky, and the salt of the wind, and the stars above. The rock of the cliff and the emptiness of the fall. But you are also mortal. I can only teach you so much before my lessons will take you where I would pray you never walk.” 
> 
> Space Scotland and Attitudes Towards Slavery, or, Obi-Wan torches a city.

“Now remember,” lectures Obi-Wan, his hands smoothing out the folds of Anakin’s robes, “You are a weapon made mortal. You are the sky, and the salt of the wind, and the stars above. The rock of the cliff and the emptiness of the fall. But you are also mortal. I can only teach you so much before my lessons will take you where I would pray you never walk.” 

Anakin’s eyes burn, burn, into his, steady and determined. “You can’t protect me anymore.” 

He looks at their men, at Commander Cody and Captain Rex, and knows they are all endangered by this fabricated war that he can’t prevent. Its occurrence is written in the threads of time, a low throb echoing down his dreams like the droning of distant pipes. “No.” It is time, and he feels sick. “Alright. Hold your wings as if you’re propositioning someone.” 

His son’s eyebrows fly upwards in surprise. “I’m sorry?” 

“Just, do it, sweetheart. I can only bear to teach you this so many times.” 

Anakin does, quirking his wings, and yes, there it is, the lines of come-touch and look-look-look in the sweeping expanse of copper wings that can become something far sultrier when the right tone is adopted. He breathes in, and allows his own body to melt and stretch, to take on that low smoulder that he hates to accept has saved his life on more than several occasions. When you can’t immediately win, distract. Invent a solution. “Make them look at you.” 

Behind them, their men shuffle uncomfortably, but they are not yet dismissed: he will have them understand why it is that where he would tell Anakin to hide, he finds the spotlight for himself. “Make them not want to look any further.” Microsignals are hard to control, and Anakin will not only need to control his wings but his face, his voice, his entire body. “Yes, like that.” 

“I don’t like this.” 

“Good,” he insists firmly, letting his eyes soften at his son’s grimace. “You are soon to be Knighted, my beloved one, and then you will be apart from me far more often than this. You will need to use every skill you can learn.” 

Anakin shuffles, and the entrancing lines of his wings shift into discomfort-anger. “I don’t like it.” 

“Good,” he says firmly. His son isn’t meant to find this enjoyable. This is survival, not thriving. This is the hard hail of six months of the year, the bitter biting cold of the mountaintops, ice gnawing at your bones in the dark of pre-dawn. “You hold, in you, a gift of a far greater nature than all of us mere Jedi ever will. Anakin, you are the child of the Force. I have seen you do the impossible.” 

Anakin shifts, wings displaying coy pride. 

“You’re going to learn this. And you will prove to me that if necessary you’ll be able to use it.” Obi-Wan settles his body once more into the lines of seduction. “These are the lessons no father should ever have to teach. Listen up.” 

“Where are you going?” 

“Out,” answers Obi-Wan, running his hand over his hair. He tightens his belt a notch, that formidable if rarely used beskad curving at his hip. Anakin isn’t sure where it came from – it’s Mandalorian, for sure. “Don’t wait up.” 

“Yeah but, out where?” he pushes. “Why like that?” 

His dad pauses, turning to face him. He’s in full ‘dress’ as he calls it, clan tartan and twisted torc and the braveheart-tattoo in full slightly intimidating display. “Got some politicians to scare.” 

Anakin nods slowly. “I’ll come with.” 

“No, you’ll stay here. I’m taking Flit.” 

“Why not me,” he demands, a bit angry – why should she get to go? He isn’t that much younger! Six years at their age is nothing. And. He’s a Knight now. 

“Because, under Clan rule, you aren’t high-ranked. You are the son of the second son of the chief, and that’s not quite enough for this. Flit is the Clan’s Keeper, so yes. We’re going, together, and you’re going to stay home. It’s about the men.” 

Under that stern rebuke, Anakin sits down again, seething a little still. They all know he won’t keep his tongue under control if he hears insults to his men, if he sees evidence of their maltreatment. Better he stay, because otherwise he’s going to cause an incident, with the Jedi or with his Clan. He can’t use his body to distract – he doesn’t have that burning determination, that internalised fury like his family do. He hasn’t ingrained it, hasn’t made it into muscle-memory like his dad and cousin have, despite the lessons in the safety of the Negotiator in the protective comfort of their men. 

“Cody, you have people behind you. In that room, in front of all those people, it is going to be little more than your body, your face, between them and your brothers. This is difficult.” Obi-Wan hears and feels his voice crack, but the tremble of his voice doesn’t make it into his body. He is hard, and strong, and revealing probably more skin than Cody has seen of him outside of the medbay or sparring ring. “Having to do this hurts. You must look like nothing can ever touch you, because if they see a fracture, a fault in the facade, they will strike, and it then that they get the collars around your neck and chains around your wrists.” 

Cody’s gold-brown eyes are deep and thoughtful, considering, analysing. “You’re not alright.” 

No, he isn’t. But why would he be, using the stereotypes about his people for his own gain? 

“Is there anything I can do to help?” 

He barks a laugh, stepping away and clinging to his hair as tight as he can, as if he can ground himself in ginger strands and the tugging of his scalp. What can anyone do? He is going to walk into the court of some Rim Queen who will peel back his tartan with her eyes as if by the revealing of his tattoos she will have some claim on him. “It is the curse of my people. We have a reputation.” 

Cody has heard what people say, and been disgusted by it, he knows; his Commander had come to him in righteous alpha-protective fury with a protocol for dealing with harassment, and Obi-Wan had had to fold it in half and place it on the table. “I understand, General.” 

“Stay close, my friend.” 

“Always, sir.” 

With an inhale Obi-Wan takes hold of all that makes him into a serene Jedi Master, and with the exhale he releases it, allowing himself to become the warrior-son of his mother, a child of the mountains and endless sky, the Protector. At his back, his Commander takes a steadying breath, adjusting to what Obi-Wan is sure is a very peculiar and disorienting circumstance. He too is disoriented. 

The Queen of the planet laughs, like a thousand shattering glasses, reclining back in her throne with her toes pointed daintily – Fox taught him that word – to the stunning carvings on the ceiling of the grand hall. “You say that my people’s territory is under threat? No, no, I think not. Not from the Jedi,” she spits the word as though it means to her what demagolka means to Cody, as though it tastes how traitor does to him. “Allow me to assure you my army is more than prepared for any eventuality,” she continues, “and that we do not need any support from a Stewjoni rogue.” 

Cody frowns, hand drifting towards his blaster at the hungry grasping gaze the Queen turns on his General, as though she can see every part of him, as though he is merely a work of art and not a Jedi Master, envoy of peace. 

“After all, you are only good for two things.” She pauses, allowing the tension formed by her claim to swell like a wave; he is suddenly deeply unnerved by what may leave her mouth. No matter what she says, there is nothing they can do about it unless she directly orders a strike against them and their General. “Gladiators and pleasure slaves.” 

One of the younger men makes a sharp move, stilling into parade-stiffness when Cody sharply cracks his bracer against his belt, a short noise all brothers are taught from a young age to respond to. He watches the Queen, knowing his eyes are burning amber more than brown. His helmet is removed, hanging on the hook on his belt, his face the only face the Queen can see. It means he must be careful, wear his best sabacc face so she doesn’t take insult. 

Their General inclines his head. “Then I shall show myself out.” He does, turning sharply on his heel with a swirl of tartans, and the men fall into formation behind him even as the Queen calls out something that gains her raucous laughter from her court, the sort of laughter he knows comes after a certain level of lewdity. 

Out in the light of day, surrounded by the high stone walls of the courtyard, his General scrapes a hand through his hair, pushing that one persistent lock out of his eyes. “Well, that was a waste of time,” he says. Cody nods in agreement, hand still hovering over his blaster. “Have you any idea,” he begins, then cuts off abruptly and marches towards a corner of the courtyard. For a moment Cody is left stumped, completely confused, but then he realises. 

A girl – woman? - with wings the rich brown of his own eyes, thin and worn in a way that he knows is wrong. She is staring at the General, green-gold eyes, hazel, the colour was called hazel, wide in something like alarm and disbelief. A huge pot is clutched tight to her body. Cody’s grasp of aging in nat-borns is loose, so he snaps his fingers at Boil, who’d studied it all in true omega fashion as soon as they’d worked themselves into something resembling a pack. 

“She’s younger than Anakin,” his brother provides, “I’d say critically malnourished too.” 

He grits his teeth, watching the way her slumped shoulders straighten under his General’s kind hands. “We can’t leave her here.” 

“She’ll be dead in months if we do,” Boil confirms quietly, his anger rising off him to the point Cody can actually taste it. Thank the Force for the small mercy of their designation-instincts being so diluted, he thinks, or Boil would have marched back into the court and challenged the Queen on the principle of the thing. 

“Cody,” their General summons, and he marches over. “Please accompany Ailse to the ship, will you?” 

Cody raises his eyebrow. “Nope. You’re coming too.” 

After a very, very brief stare-off, the General huffs and concedes, and they start the trek back to the Negotiator. Ailse is handed off to Boil, who begins fussing over her within moments. Cody sighs. He isn’t sure what his Jedi-General has in his mind now, but it sure isn’t going to be convenient. 

Cody marches forwards, inhaling in preparation to bellow at his men, but he is beaten to it by the Jedi Knight from the Temple who came with them, who had spent the trip not avoiding him but simply busy as he had been. She is a Stewjoni, he realises now he can actually see her, huge blonde wings raised high in the air, high above his brothers’ heads. The hair on his neck raises up in response to the predatory snarl she releases at the medics, Ailse half-hidden in blankets and a set of robes which hang off her. “What is going on here,” he demands, in full officer-form. 

Her hard blue glare turns to him, unlit saber in one hand and a real sword – beskar, if he is any judge of the shine of it, but not a beskad, a straight sword – in the other, pointed to the ground yet very much in defensive position. “You are the Commander?” 

“Cody, ma’am,” he responds. Then, when he scans the area and realises what is missing, “where is the General?” 

She spits on the dirt at her feet. “That woman had a child of our Clan, and perhaps others besides.” 

Okay, but that doesn’t explain the unholy fear he sees in his brothers. His confusion must show, for she sighs. “It is our custom,” she states, and he recognises the tone of a rote. A ritual. “Our children will bear no chain, and our wings shall not lie fettered.” 

Oh, he thinks, shivering at the ice in her voice, I don’t like this. 

“We will kill her, for there is no honour in one who would trap a soul to earth. For each of our people stolen the Protector will slash down one of theirs. Bodies shall rest and our souls shall take flight.” 

Cody swallows, suddenly feeling that he is inadequate, that if she turned that rage to him he would crumble under it like some nat-born civvy. He has seen his General fight; seen him angry; yet nothing compares to this vacuum-like rage he sees in the young Knight. What, he suddenly wonders, would his General do if that was Padawan Commander Skywalker in the Stewjoni woman’s place? The thought does not bear even considering. “I see, ma’am.” 

She huffs, turning to the horizon. “I’m sure you do,” she responds a little more gently, and then smiles. 

It is the sunset, he thinks, and then he realises the sun set before they’d reached the Negotiator. Fire. His General has torched the city for the sake of one child they found in reasonable health. 

He shivers, and the fear rises in him too.


End file.
